Service providers are continually challenged to deliver value and convenience to consumers by providing compelling network systems and services. One area of particular interest involves management of network resources, namely bandwidth, to ensure high network performance and availability even for the consumer level market (as opposed to enterprise customers). Consumers have adapted to the availability of broadband services by deploying high-speed private networks to access a multitude of sophisticated services, thereby placing greater strain on resources of the network service providers. With the increasing use of the network resources by user devices to access games, movies and other data intensive applications, bandwidth management can become problematic in bandwidth constrained environments. These user devices, such as smartphones or tablets, are generally able to connect to a cellular network as well as a wireless network (e.g., WiFi), and thus, can consume resources of either networks. However, little attention has been focused on managing such usage from the perspective of the service provider, as the interests of the end users and the service providers are generally in opposition.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for better utilization of network resources, while enhancing coordination of resources of the end users' network and the network of the service provider.